advice on stiff lenses

[athans]

Hello,

I am new to rangefinders and have 0 experience fixing lenses,cameras etc. I have two lenses that I would like to use with a Contax (IIa) and a Kiev, a Zeiss-Opton 35mm Biogon and an 85mm Jupiter (Im also looking to buy an 85mm Nikkor in Contax mount--Ill post a WTB message in the near future!).

Both lenses (esp. the Biogon) are excellent cosmetically. However, focusing is on the stiff side, you can still do it but it's annoying. I would like to service them but Im not sure how to go about it. I looked at Henry Scherer's zeisscamera.com but about $135 dollars to service a stiff lens sounds excessive to me. The glass of both lenses is super clean. Im not sure how much Essex camera would charge (havent heard from them yet). That's about the only two sources I know.

I have never opened a lens myself but I would be very much afraid to experiment on such a good Biogon or even on the 85mm Jupiter which seems to be a really good 1961 sample (judging from the pictures my father was taking back then). I dont even know what is the source of the stiffness, old lubricants, mechanical "problem"?

I'd appreciate any advice, suggestions for where to service it (I live in NY by the way) or, if you think that stiff focus is a trivial problem to fix, any online instructions, tips etc.

Thanks!
Thanasis

 

[Bruce A]

Don't take apart the helicals of the J-9. Lots of them have been ruined this way as it is a nightmare to get the threads of the helicals back in correct alignment so it will work correctly with the rangefinder.
I have two, and what I did was unscrew the optical assemmbly from the focus mount ( all the glass guts unscrew as one unit ). I then soaked the helical assemmbley in some solvent, and kept working it back and forth until I got most all the old goo out. I then used some thin gun oil on the threads and worked that bacjk and forth a bunch. After several years the lenses work ok, not as good as full cla, but they do focus correctly.
Another down and dirty trick for old lenses is to sit them for several days on top of some warm electrical thing, like a radio, sattelite receiver or some such. Let them warm up a while, work them back and forth a bunch, repeat a lot over several days. Sometimes this is all it takes. Usually it will work for a while, and then they stiffen up again, but it is easy, and requires no lens disassembly.
The Best Stuff forum has reams of stuff on this subject, worth doing a search before you screw up a lens.

 

[Bruce A]

Sorry for my bad spelling, I really am not iliterate, but its hard to prove.

 

[Stanton]

A variant on the warm electrical thing which has worked for me on shutters and lenses which have congealed old grease is an electric hair dryer on low. Heat some and then work the lens or the shutter. Then heat again, and work again, and so forth.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Essex Camera in New Jersey has serviced several Nikon RF, Leica, and Nikon SLR lenses for me. The most expensive was $90, which involved deep cleaning haze on a Summarit and rebuilding a mangled filter ring. Look at my Summarit Folder for the results.

Summarit: after CLA, before was pea soup!

 

[doubs43]

Re: advice on stiff lenses

Originally posted by athans I have never opened a lens myself but I would be very much afraid to experiment on such a good Biogon or even on the 85mm Jupiter which seems to be a really good 1961 sample (judging from the pictures my father was taking back then). I dont even know what is the source of the stiffness, old lubricants, mechanical "problem"? Thanasis

A second opinion, if you don't mind. I re-lubed my J-9 in Kiev mount and it's not really THAT difficult. For a step-by-step illustrated procedure that is in a .doc format, go here: http://www.beststuff.com/forum/read.php?f=27&i=39&t=39

Click on the attachment in the first post and save it to your computer. Open it and print it out.

The "trick" of getting the helical back together for proper focus is carefully noting the exact orientation of the two pieces when they separate. Witness marks on the two pieces when they are fully mated will give a reference that you can check when it's back together. Not aligned correctly? Note how far off they are and then take them back apart, move the pieces the amount they were mis-aligned and screw them back together. They should now align correctly.

Where most people seem to have trouble is with the spring that seats the "fingers" in the corresponding camera mount recesses when the lens is mounted. Note that the spring is larger on one end than the other. The small end goes over the inner barrel and grips it while the more open end allows the spring to move up and down without binding on the sides of the inner barrel. Just look at the spring carefully before removing it.

The final caution is to make certain that all shims or spacers that are on the lens when you remove the lens group are replaced exactly as they were when you put it back together. They establish the correct mount-to-film plane distance for critical focusing.

Finally, the Nikon mount and the Contax/Kiev mount are different in regards to the distance to the film plane. Unless you're very lucky, the Nikon lens will not focus correctly when mounted on a Kiev or Contax.

Walker

 

[athans]

Actually after I left the lenses on the radiator (low heat!) for a couple of hours they both got very smooth and easy to focus! Then I turned them again and again for a few minutes. When they got back to room temperature they were slightly stiff but nothing compared to what they were before. Great advice! In the meantime I decided to try to find some "broken" such lenses and experiment opening them, lubricating them etc. The beststuff documents were great!

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[justins7]

If you are in NYC there is a Russian Camera shop on 31st or 32nd Street (Panoramic?) between 6th and 7th Aves. (If they are still there.) They have tons of old camera stuff and do repairs.

They've fixed a bunch of my lenses, including a VERY stiff Canon 50 1.4, and I think they charged about $50. You could always try them.